Early in the morning, Marisa sat at her computer, apathetically reading through the news feed pronouncements on Facebook. She stopped scrolling when she saw that the man she loved for oh so long had posted a photograph of a glass vase filled with bright yellow flowers. In the comment box, he wrote only one word:  Daffodils.

He used to buy flowers like those for her.

Throughout their years together, he had made sure that the vase on the table next to her side of the bed always had flowers in it. Lilies, orchids, mums, forsythia.

Now he bought flowers for someone else.

Marisa looked at the daffodils in the photograph — their saturation of color, the ruffled petals. She wondered how flowers themselves could look so absolutely happy, almost giddy.

Marisa knew that if she had seen this photo posted during the dark days of the past winter, she would have wept, sobbing sobs that would leave her feeling vacant and drained. She may have curled up in a ball, pulling her comforter over her head, abandoning all hope of surviving the big black sinkhole of pain that grew inside of her.

But that was then. The longer days of spring had arrived.

Marisa decided that the first thing she would do today was buy herself fresh-cut white tulips. She would carefully arrange the flowers in a glass vase and set them on the nightstand next to her bed.

The tulips would turn toward the sun, and each day, their petals would open wider, reaching out toward new beginnings.